"Then hear mine. I have a car waiting just off the Square. You may knock me on the head, as you've already threatened. At least I shall have no further responsibility for you then. But unless you do that I'm going to get straight into that car, drive to Ker Annic, and tell the Airds the whole thing before I go to bed. You'll then have the satisfaction that it's a straight fight in the open, and that you aren't creeping like a blight into a happy house under a name that isn't even your own."
He spoke very, very slowly. "You mean that, George?"
"Enough. I'm going to stand here without moving till the next time that Light shows your face. Then I shall do what I've said."
And I stood, still as the rocks at the foot of the Crucifix, giving him his chance.
V
The darkness seemed an omnipresent thing, positive rather than an absence, that invaded and became part of me, of him, of the place, of the hour. Not a star was to be seen, not one speck in the immensity of the night. I did not even look where I knew his black-bloused figure to be; his hand might have been uplifted for all I knew. Or for all I cared. Once more I was weary to death of him and his domination. There was not room for both of us. He might have the field henceforward to himself. I had done what I could.
It was an eleven-seconds interval. The Light came. Still I did not look at him. The Light passed away again.
Four seconds, and once more the Light.
Eleven seconds, the Light, four seconds, the Light....